http://www.straightdope.com/columns/061208.html
This seems a bit… overcautious to me. We’ve burned torn wrapping paper in our fireplace, as we unwrap family presents, for decades with nary a problem. Of course you don’t want to stuff so much in that you get a huge fireball, and you have to feed it in gradually enough that it all burns. Plus you get pretty flames and a nice little blast of heat when it ignites each time.
Toxic fumes? Roofs catching on fire? Bah, humbug.
Not to be persnickety about it, but you posted an anecdote. Cecil provided data.
And an anecdote, of course. Poor Uncle Bob! 
The dangers of burning loose paper in a fireplace depends on the condition of the chimney and the roof. A recent Mythbusters-style examination of the origins of the Great Chicago Fire suggests that the blaze started on the roof of the O’Leary’s barn, caused by burning embers blown from a neighbor’s chimney.
The problem I’m seen is when paper has a plastic coating. Or you burn those fancy gift bags that have rope handles and are thick with foil.
They go up the chimney in huge chunks, partially burned and partially still burning, and the melted plastic makes them stick to whatever cool they brush against.
We burn only paper. Nothing with strings, rope, plastic attachments, etc. Just sayin’.
Man, that’s one of my favorite childhood Christmas memories – seeing those beautiful bits of flaming paper falling all over the snow-covered yard.
Shame we have a gas fireplace now.
My very anal-retentive Uncle P has not burned, since he has no fireplace, thank Og, but thrown away more than one instruction booklet/rebate/accessory on Christmas morning. My cousins having to go through the trash looking for the other earring was bad enough; imagine if he’d burned Christmas detritus.
Did he, though? Cecil explained the ways in which burning paper could potentially cause a problem, but I didn’t see anything in the article about how often this sort of thing actually happens.
My guess, admittedly based on purely anecdotal evidence, is that the ratio of number of households in which wrapping paper is burned after Christmas to the number of resultant housefires is quite low.
For some people christmas is about presents, for others the turkey and slumping in front of the TV but for me nothing brings back the holiday spirit than drunken grandparents and a good chimney fire.
Back in the sixties in the village where I live the volunteer fire brigade were summoned by an air raid siren; every christmas morning between 9 and 11 the siren would go off and my brother and I would rush outside to see if we could spot the plume of smoke and flames from an unswept chimney ignited by burning wrapping paper. Sometimes it was close, othertimes far away; one memorable year it was next door much to everyones excitement.
I never got the Johnny-7 gun or the chopper cycle or the tons of other crap I wanted over the years but you could always rely on some idiot setting his chimney alight.
My grandparents are long gone and we all have central heating but every now and then the smell of hot soot or a fire siren brings it all back
I have an uncle who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, and never got lung cancer, died at age 93. I know someone who uses electrical appliances in the shower and has never been electrocuted. And look at all the people who don’t buckle their seat belts and are just fine.
In short, just because it hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t. Only teenagers think they’re invincible.
You mean… they aren’t? Jeez. My niece is sure in for a surprise, then.
Most municipalities have laws that all chimneys must have spark arrestors–a plate on top and wire mesh around the sides. This keeps embers from traveling up the chimney and causing fires on the roof. However, they don’t stop embers from getting stuck inside the chimney and lighting up whatever’s stuck in there: creosote, animals, Santa–you get the idea. Then again, if you have the spark arrestor in place, the last two items are less likely to get inside, unless your contractor forgot to check before installing.
This is wonderful. Please, please send it as a letter to some newspaper. (You have to change the word “crap”, of course.) It deserves to be published.